[Bug 1103187] Re: automatic updates tend to reboot and die into grub rescue

Fri Jan 25 18:12:25 UTC 2013

New progression in confirming, that "grub-install /dev/sda" writes block information into boot area, while the content of these block are refreshed much later, latest at the next mounting of the XFS root filesystem.

The "dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc" contains first "grub-install /dev/sda"
and second "update-grub".

My separated experinces shows, that the second, "update-grub" makes no
reboot problem, while "grub-install /dev/sda" is guaranteed to cause
reboot fail.

I found an interesting new error, occuring wery late during the boot
process, namely I could already see the graphical works space, when a
small window popped up informing me, that

        Sorry, Ubuntu 12.10 experienced an internal error.

There was a facility to automatically send a report of it, I sent it.

Now the real progress is, that I found that the OTHER PROBLEMS described
in the very first post

        "booting the new kernel hangs at the missing initial ram disk"

now knowing much more about the incoherency problem, so now it is clear,
that the initial ram disk FAILS TO BE MISSING, instead, due to the
incoherency problems, the boot process can't see the new initial ram
disk of the new kernel!

Just after the previous post, I received the new kernel 3.5.0-23, this
is the 6. kernel update since the release of 12.10.  As a surprise, this
time there was NO reboot problem.  Hence I decided to remove the
previous kernel, the 3.5.0-22, and immediately I got reboot problem, but
slighly different from the previous ones:

namely I got NORMAL grub prompt, but in turn of it, the linux.mod was
not loadable in spite of the fact, that it was listable,

and the most instructive fact was, that I could reach the DELETED
kernel, ramdisk etc!, while the new ramdisk was missing, while at the
last boot I could boot it!

This means, that when dpkg purged the previous kernel, then the file
system journaled what to do, but did not eventually do it on the block
level before the reboot.

Now I see, that the diverse kind of problems in the last 2 1/2 months
were NOT diverse, but only this incoherency problem.

As a result, sometimes I got normal grub, but initrd was missing, or it
was not missing, but the grub menu was missing, etc.  Other times the
grub stoped at it's rescue mode due to the apparent inaccessibility of
normal.mod, etc.  These caused the impression of having diverse problems
instead of a single one.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1103187

Title:
  xfs left inconcistent after reboot, causing grub to fail

Status in “grub2” package in Ubuntu:
  Incomplete

Bug description:

  On 3 essentially different Ubuntu 12.10 installations

          bios or uefi boot,
          linux is alone or other system is along,
          legacy or guid partiton table

  it is a regularly appearing issue since 12.10, that if the automatic
  update touches a package which has some impact on the boot,

  then the next reboot get stock at either the grub rescue prompt, or
  booting the new kernel hangs at the missing initial ram disk, the
  latter is typical after kernel update, even just after the virgin
  installation of a fresh Ubuntu.

  Grub rescue prompt is the much harder situation, I either type in the
  correct grub commands to boot the previous kernel, or I use a "boot an
  existing linux from a partition" menu of a SYSRESC pen drive.

  Never really clear, what was wrong and what really helped.

  Here is a list of my manual struggling and accidental solution
  methods:

  (1) Sometimes I do nothing, except for booting once more the system by
  hand or by SYSRESC pen, and surprisingly the next time the system
  boots, asif there was no kind of problem before.   THIS happens more
  frequently on the combination below, and less frequently on the other
  2 combinations:

          bios boot + other system along + legacy partition table

  (2) More frequent in general is that remove/reinstall grub2, and/or
  remove/reinstall new kernel, and/or simply grub-install and update-
  grub helps, but usually NOT IN ONE STEP, however even after a logical
  and defensive

          grub-install /dev/sda

  the situation likes to become worse, usually changes between the two
  possibilities below:

          "error: invalid arch-independant ELF magic."

          "error: ELF header smaller than expected."

  and naturally I have the grub rescue prompt.   This time, just before
  this error report, the solution appeared to be the

          removal of memtest86+ and reinstall of it,

  as first there was a normal grub menu, but memtest was missing from it
  and the boot was unsuccessful, and after the usual kernel and grub
  tampering I got the invalid arch-independant ELF magic, furter usual
  tampering bought the ELF header smaller than expected, and finally my
  desperate trial was the removal of the memtest against it's
  dependencies, ... and it helped this time.

  This kind of struggling is more frequent on the 2 combination below:

          bios boot + linux alone + legacy partition table

          uefi boot + linux alone + either legacy or guid partition
  table (the both yields the error)

  The latter uefi shows the problem most stable, even if I reinstall the
  12.10 back to bios, from scratch.

  I work with computers since 1972, and with linux 1994, but I still has
  no firm idea which package is buggy.

  My guess is that not the grub itself is buggy, but the other packages
  have a buggy configuration relation to grub.

  I suggest to rate this bug serious, if we take serious the #1 main
  bug, see this site.

  I spread linux among my students at the university since the 90's,
  however if their system can become unavailable due to an automatic
  update, then some of then will give up learning linux.

  I understand that a usual other bug can be serious and hard.  But if I
  suggest the someone to switch to linux, and he/she can lost even the
  booting opportunity, then it is scary for most of the average users,
  and usually they have no enough skills to tackle the situtation, even
  to rescue their own personal files back to a proprietary system.

  That's why I suggest to rate this bug serious.  Serious in the
  consequencies in public relations.

  The version of the all the packages I use are the most up to date due
  to my policy to update as frequent as possible.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
  Package: grub2 (not installed)
  Uname: Linux 3.2.34-std312-amd64 x86_64
  NonfreeKernelModules: raid10 raid456 async_raid6_recov async_pq raid6_pq async_xor xor async_memcpy async_tx raid1 raid0 multipath linear radeon r8169 mii usb_storage ttm drm_kms_helper drm i2c_algo_bit i2c_core wmi
  ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu10
  Architecture: amd64
  Date: Tue Jan 22 21:28:32 2013
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-10-19 (95 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Release amd64 (20121017.5)
  MarkForUpload: True
  ProcEnviron:
   TERM=xterm
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: grub2
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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